T. FBI Impersonation

Approximately 20 FBI agents told the OIG that they had information regarding non-FBI personnel impersonating FBI agents. However, only one agent reported that she personally observed this conduct. In many cases FBI agents reported that detainees told them they had already been interviewed by the FBI, when the agents knew otherwise.

An FBI agent who was deployed to GTMO from December 2003 through September 2004 told the OIG about two occasions when a CIA interrogator represented herself as an FBI agent in a detainee interrogation. The agent stated that she reported this activity to her immediate supervisor at GTMO and also to the OSC. She also described another incident in which a detainee told her that he had been polygraphed by a female African American FBI polygrapher. She said she could not confirm that the FBI ever had an African American female polygrapher on the island, and that she concluded that someone from another agency was impersonating FBI personnel.

Several other FBI agents reported to the OIG that detainees told them they had previously been questioned by other FBI personnel under circumstances that led the agents to believe that they had in fact been questioned by personnel from other agencies posing as FBI agents. Two agents told the OIG that they heard that intelligence personnel from the Defense HUMINT Service and the CIA started to dress like FBI agents at GTMO in order to either confuse detainees or to outright impersonate FBI agents during interrogations.

The FBI OSC at GTMO from June 2003 to August 2003 said that before he arrived at GTMO he was aware that U.S. military interrogators had been representing themselves as FBI agents by dressing casually and telling detainees they were FBI agents. He stated that he knew that some military and CIA interrogators would tell detainees that they were FBI as a ruse in an interrogation, and that it was a common practice for CIA agents to say they were FBI so as not to reveal their presence.155

Notes

155. The OIG also determined that a U.S. Army Sergeant falsely identified herself to detainee Slahi ([#]760) as an FBI agent. This incident is discussed further in Section XV of Chapter Five.